Computational thinking in education. Bibliometric and thematic analysis

Abstract

The status of computational thinking as one of the most demanded skills explains why suggestions are currently being made to apply it within the educational context. This paper constitutes an attempt to analyze the scientific literature on the implementation of computational thinking in the field of education published in the most important Web of Science database collections. To achieve this, a systemic revision was made where attention was paid to four variables, namely: publication year; countries with more productions; the most productive authors in this field; and documentary sources with a higher number of publications. Added to this, we carried out a classification according to the types of documents and the research methods used, along with the educational stages under study and the programming language adopted. Publications are undoubtedly on an upward trend, Spain standing out as one of the most productive countries in this area. Likewise, evidence demonstrates not only that this field of study has been addressed using the two main research methods - quantitative and qualitative - but also that the emphasis has traditionally been placed on the primary education stage.